CU-Boulder Selected for Sounding Rocket Payload

University of Colorado at Boulder News Release

2007 May 25

NASA has awarded the University of Colorado at Boulder $1.2 million to design
and build a rocket payload to probe a nearby interstellar cloud with new
technology that may help scientists better understand the mass and evolution of
distant galaxies.

The payload, an ultraviolet spectrometer to be built by faculty and students at
CU-Boulder's Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy, is slated for launch
in 2009 from the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. The instrument package
will investigate the ratio of molecular hydrogen -- known to condense into dark,
star-forming clouds in interstellar space -- to carbon monoxide, a closely
associated compound, said Professor James Green, principal investigator on the
effort.

While the sounding rocket experiment will provide only about five minutes of
data from a nearby star-forming cloud in the Milky Way, researchers are hopeful
it will prove the effectiveness of the new spectrograph's ability to break down
UV light more precisely than with previous technology, said Green. The analysis
of such light provides information on distant space objects, including their
temperatures, densities and chemical compositions, he said.

CU-Boulder was one of four universities selected by NASA to conduct suborbital
scientific research in a step toward reinvigorating the space agency's sounding
rocket program. "CASA has a long history of sounding rocket research, and we are
excited that NASA is bringing this rocket program back to life," said Green, a
professor in the astrophysical and planetary sciences department.

The project will involve a number of graduate and undergraduate students in the
design and construction of the payload and subsequent scientific analysis of the
data, said Green. The payload will be built at the CASA Astrophysics Research
Laboratory in the CU Research Park.

Green also is the principal investigator on the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph, a
$70 million instrument designed and built by CU-Boulder with Ball Aerospace
Systems Group of Boulder. The spectrograph is slated to be inserted on the
Hubble Space Telescope in September 2008 and will gather UV light from distant
stars, galaxies and quasars to detail the conditions of the early universe.

The new sounding rocket technology to be tested by CASA has the potential to
provide three times the resolution of UV light currently available from the most
sophisticated orbiting telescopes, said CASA Professor Michael Shull. "The five
minutes of fame on this sounding rocket launch could be a step to a much bigger
ultraviolet and optical observatory along the lines of a 'Son of Hubble
Telescope' 15 or 20 years down the road," said Shull, chair of the board of
directors for the national Association of Universities for Research in
Astronomy.

Green said CASA has been involved in about 15 sounding rocket projects since the
1980s and has launched several previous sounding rocket experiments from the
White Sands Missile Range.

The other three sounding rocket projects selected by NASA this week include far
UV observations of magnetic fields in stellar "envelopes," by the University of
Wisconsin-Madison; multicamera investigations of sub-storm auroras by Dartmouth
College; and the testing of a new photo-electron focusing system by the
University of California, Los Angeles.

"NASA's sounding rocket program is one of the most cost-effective ways to train
future orbital science mission team members and principal investigators, giving
them hands-on space flight experience," said Alan Stern, associate administrator
for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C. "I
hope this effort will be a catalyst for more suborbital work conducted for space
science and Earth science research."

The CU-Boulder rocket is expected to reach a height of about 200 miles before
drifting back to Earth by parachute for recovery at White Sands. NASA's sounding
rocket program also launches from Wallops Island, Va., and the Poker Flat
Research Range in Alaska.

This story was originally titled "CU-Boulder Selected For Sounding Rocket Launch To Study Galactic Gas".